Skip Bayless has long made a career out of being a provocateur, but sports media’s biggest heel learned this week that there is a line that shouldn’t be crossed when talking about sports and has been in the crosshairs of just about everyone because of it.
Bayless sent a remarkably tone deaf and insensitive tweet wondering how the NFL could postpone Bills-Bengals while the entire football world simply wanted to know if Damar Hamlin was going to live after going into cardiac arrest on the field on Monday Night Football. Since then, he’s made a weak non-apology on air, gotten blasted by his co-host Shannon Sharpe when the Hall of Famer returned to the air on Wednesday, and been the target of more mockery by Charles Barkley (and just about everyone else).
On Sunday, FOX analyst Michael Strahan became the latest to rip Bayless, calling him out (without even saying his name, just “someone here at this network”) for being “inhumane” and noting that “sensible people and sensible human beings have a heart” and understand when something is more important than football.
Michael Strahan called out Skip Bayless, although he avoided directly saying his name.
“There were things done here, by someone here at this network, that were inhumane.” pic.twitter.com/sXAUVkBALE
— Jordan Heck (@JordanHeckFF) January 8, 2023
You can hear the rest of the FOX NFL Sunday desk agreeing with Strahan, and it’s notable in that you don’t often hear this kind of direct condemnation of something Bayless (or any other talking head) says by someone else on a network. However, in this instance, it was absolutely important for Strahan to do so because Skip is such a big name and FOX has made him one of the faces of their network. When he crosses that line, someone has to call him out and also has to distance everyone else from that statement to ensure everyone knows that’s not the belief of anyone else.